


Never Have I Ever.... Yet

by Gleaming_Spires (cuppaktea)



Series: Nights In White Polyester Satin [1]
Category: History Boys (2006), History Boys - All Media Types, History Boys - Bennett
Genre: Dakin is being slut blocked by the universe and he hates it, Dakin's Bisexuality is the main character in this, M/M, Unsexy sex stuff, sexuality questioning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 10:48:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30104814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuppaktea/pseuds/Gleaming_Spires
Summary: Stuart Dakin hates 'never have I ever'
Relationships: Dakin/Tom Irwin unrequited, David Posner/Donald Scripps, Stuart Dakin/Original Character(s)
Series: Nights In White Polyester Satin [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2224956
Comments: 7
Kudos: 5





	Never Have I Ever.... Yet

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why this was so difficult to write, especially as I started it as a side project from something else I am struggling with but it's done so please let me know your thoughts (especially on characterisations, I feel like I'm struggling with Dakin on this one so maybe I have him wrong idk?)
> 
> Also looking over it I'm fairly sure I should have posted it in chapters but Fuck It

Stuart Dakin hates ‘never have I ever’. Oh, he loves drinking games. Loves sharing stories, laughing at the antics of friends and strangers alike, and doubts he’ll ever tire of getting drunk and making a fool of himself. He just hates this stupid game. Not that he’s ever honest when he does play - heaven forbid - but he can never quite suppress a groan when it inevitably gets suggested at whatever party he’s attending. If he wanted his own failings spelled out and highlighted he has any number of ex girlfriends he could call on instead.

He’s never had a threesome; he can’t drive, and has never even tried to learn; he’s never been to America, or Asia or up a sodding mountain; he’s never had anything pierced; never had sex in his parents’ bed; never had a same sex experience (other than Hector, and the day he counts that will be the day he gives up on life entirely); and has never slept with a teacher - not as rare a feat as he’d imagined if his peers at Oxford are to believed (admittedly not a given). He’s barely lived and he doesn’t need a stupid game invented to help uptight twats to get drunk to remind him of his failings in public.

He’s saying as much over breakfast after a particularly long and boring round he stumbled into at a freshers’ party he’d crashed the night before. Whether the game is to blame, or the fact that he didn’t pull, or the particularly vicious hangover it’s left him with, he’s feeling particularly shit this morning. 

“Why do you play if it upsets you so much?” ‘ _puts you in such a foul mood_ ’ is what he means, but Scripps doesn’t need to say it aloud. 

“We can’t all be smug and superior like you” He snaps back

Scripps just smiles back, good natured over the rim of his teacup. “I don’t see how smugness comes into it. If I don’t want to do something, for example because I know I’ll end up with alcohol poisoning or mardy for the rest of the week, I just say ‘no thanks’”

“What you’re doing now,” Dakin waves his fork at him. “That’s smug”

“Would you say I’m smug, Pos?”

“Yes. Why?” He greets Scripps with a kiss and Dakin rolls his eyes. “Only teasing, of course you’re not, love.”

“Dakin wants his fancy friends to think he’s had sex in zero gravity, and is grumpy about his pedestrian erotic life”

Posner shrugs. “What’s that got to do with you?”

“One: they’re not my friends, they’re just some people I met last night. Two: This is an example of your smugness. Three: if you run into any of them, you both had sex with me at school, OK?”

Posner’s eyes are wide with shock. “Absolutely not”

“Go on, be a mate. You don’t have to do anything - just if anyone says anything I gave you a pity walk in the showers after PE, and Scripps, I did you up the arse in your dad’s tool shed”

“I think I’m going to be sick”

He rolls his eyes again but it makes him feel nauseous, so he stops. “Oh, get over yourselves. It’s nothing personal.”

Posner gapes like an affronted fish. 

He sighs theatrically. “I just wish I’d had a blowy in a car or something. I’m twenty two and I’ve done nothing, I’ve been nowhere and I’ve barely had a sex life”

“I mean – If you’ve barely had a sex life then the rest of us have no hope”

“No variety then”

Pos and Scripps catch each other’s eyes in a way that they probably think is subtle. 

“Dakin,” Posner’s lips are twitching with suppressed laughter, and Dakin snarls at him, weakly. “I’m going to just come out and say it: If you want to fuck a man, go and do it. There’s nothing stopping you”

“What? No, I don’t want to –“

Scripps raises a skeptical eyebrow and Posner folds his arms and looks superior, as only Posner can.

“ – It’s not _just_ that.”

“The Irwin thing?” Posner asks Scripps.

Scripps pats Dakin on the shoulder. “The Irwin thing” He confirms.

“Stop it.” Annoyed, he shrugs off Scripps’ hand “There is no _Irwin thing.”_

“That’s not what you said last year”

“It’s nothing to do with him. I want to not be a completely bland boring plain vanilla nobody”

“So make it happen, it’s not difficult”

“Even I’m beating you in this game”

“Oh fuck off, Scripps, you were going out with that girl for about sixty seconds”

“Yeah but I still did it, didn’t I? You know what the real problem is, Stu?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me” He mutters, his head in his hands, eggs and bacon abandoned beneath his nose.

“You’re so obsessed with what other people think of you. That’s what all this is about, and why all three of us are subjected to your dreadful hangover – because you lied and you’d rather get alcohol poisoning than tell the truth about yourself”

“I won’t make friends if people know I’ve slept with twelve very similar girls, and the most daring thing about it was that time I kept my socks on!”

“Yes.” Scripps says, rising from the table. “You will. I’ve got a lecture to get to”

“I’ll walk with you” Pos smiles and drains his coffee.

“Oh gross,” Dakin mutters to thin air as they depart, maintaining as much contact as is legally possible in public.They’re still in that disgusting love struck phase where - despite having known each other for most of their short lives – neither of them can leave a room without the other tagging along, or else giving advanced notice in writing and allowing twenty minutes for saliva-drenched goodbyes. It’s nauseating. The fact that he’s jealous has nothing to do with it.

In some ways he envies Scripps and his methodical method towards sex and sexuality. Religiously celibate at school, once he got to university he started going out with the first girl who asked him, politely waited a fortnight before taking it further and quietly decided he was gay after their second time having sex (he confessed to being pretty sure the first time but gave it another go so as to be absolutely sure it wasn’t first time nerves). Afterwards, he went away and consulted both God and his heart before making up his mind he was in love with David Posner, and that was that. Nothing more complicated than the crossword, and just as easily solved after some quiet thought. It wouldn’t suit Dakin at all. He sees someone he likes and he goes for it – it either works or it doesn’t. It’s not his fault that he’s been far more successful with the ladies.

It’s not only Scripps’ eunuch-like method that doesn’t work for him, either. There’s no doubt that now they’ve declared themselves ‘in love’ this is it for Scripps. He’s found the love interest in his story and got all that pesky suspense out of the way – from now on it will be plain sailing, and whatever is the gay equivalent of marriage, two point four kids and a semi detached house in the suburbs. As for Dakin, he’s young and free and has no interest in tying himself down yet, and somehow Scripps has had a more adventurous sex life than him. He’s had both a serious girlfriend and boyfriend, he’s still friends with the girl – even goes out with her of an evening sometimes with Pos and her new boyfriend; he’s experimented with all sorts of things Dakin only has a vague idea about – he’s tried it up the arse and everything. It’s just not fair. 

  
In spite of what he tells Scripps, and anyone else who dares to mention it, he does still think about Irwin. The stack of picture postcards of Oxford he keeps in his bedside drawer attest to how much. He often thinks of things he wants to tell him, and now uses him as a sort of diary. It didn’t start that way, he genuinely meant to write, but each time he would, he’d re-read what he’d written and tear it up, blushing furiously. He keeps buying the postcards, but these days he never intends to send them, never even addresses them. Instead he writes out his feelings, slips it into his pocket, and whenever he has the chance, tears it up and deposits it in one of the bins around the city. It’s become a sort of ritual whenever something is weighing on his mind. It helps so he doesn’t examine it too closely, and in order to stop it being examined he can’t share it with Scripps. This is something purely between him and the imaginary Irwin.

That afternoon he should be working on his dissertation but his mind keeps circling back to his frustration from the night before. Eventually he pushes aside his empty pad and gives in to the urge to take out a postcard - Magdalene Bridge, not that it matters.His biro which has sat heavy in his hand all day, only occasionally leaking a drop of sticky ink onto his knuckle, now flies across the blank white space, filling every cramped corner with his thoughts. 

Dakin knows he’s bi. He’s attracted to men, he’s wanked to thoughts of some of them, and, as Scripps so helpfully pointed out, there was the thing with Irwin – the not-thing, that he thinks about occasionally when he’s alone in bed or in the shower - those moments he keeps a secret from even the postcards. It’s not an issue for him, but he wishes more people knew about it, and not in the doubting way that implies he’s probably making it up to sound more interesting, or currently going through the experimental phase that most of his public school friends have already left behind years ago. There’s only one thing for it, he concludes as he reaches the bottom of the card: he needs to lose his virginity again. 

  
  


**~*~**

The first attempt is admittedly rocky.

  
  


“What _do_ you look like?” Pos drawls 

“We’re going mixed clubbing aren’t we? I want to be ready for anything”

“Anyone, you mean”

“Why not? this was your idea”

Posner shrugs but doesn’t stop smirking. He doesn’t let it bother him, he and Posner have always had wildly different tastes. He’s been getting ready for hours, sweeping up his hair as high as it will go, scrubbing his trainers to gleam white and assembling the most alluring outfit he can. He darts to the darkened window to check his appearance, adjusting his faux silk shirt to show a little more chest. 

“I can’t not pull” He grins. 

As well as the chest his forearms are on show, and his jeans are uncomfortably tight - for a moment he debated putting a sock in his pants but decided against it in the very likely event he made it into someone’s bedroom he’d rather not look a twat. And then there’s the earring. Big and pendulous and plastic it hangs from his stinging, newly pierced lobe - something else he’s always felt ashamed of never having done. Earlier that evening, as the bored guy in the tattoo parlour had speared it through with the needle, he’d thought it a tidy metaphor. It didn’t hurt as much as he expected, and he considered that to be a good omen, too. On the other hand, the bloke was utterly immune to his attempt at flirting, so maybe not. 

Posner looks delicate and androgynous and Scripps looks like what he is: a gay Christian who’s not out to pull.

“You’re half an hour late” Scripps grumbles without heat as he emerges from the bathroom. “I hope you haven’t been keeping us waiting just so you could do yourself up like a dog’s dinner.” He reaches out to inspect the earring and Dakin flinches away.

“If you couldn’t find a way to entertain yourselves that’s on you” He winks at them. “Shall we be off, ladies?”

  
Pre-drinks are at a house party – some roommate-of-a-friend-of-Rudge’s is having a birthday or something and almost immediately Dakin catches the eye of a girl with a septum piercing and a half-shaved head. He looks away, reminding himself that he’s not after girls tonight and not to get derailed but she finds him twenty minutes later and he’s only human. The music is too loud to talk properly so they skip straight to snogging. She writes her number on his hand and he borrows her purple lipstick. It really suits him. Formalities concluded, she pulls him into a bedroom where some friends of hers are getting stoned and playing _never have I ever_. It’s then he decides, with fresh determination, that it’s time to move on. 

He locates Pos and Scripps downstairs, talking politics with some dry economics students, one of whom has bad acne and worse hair and who Pos introduces him to with a few sharp nudges in the ribs. Dakin suspects he’s being set up, but frankly he would rather shag a fence post, and insists they move on to somewhere livelier. 

The club’s a total bust - he gets as far as chatting to a guy who, after saying hello, very politely asks ‘may I kiss you?’ and then disappears into the crowd with a grin once it’s all done, leaving Dakin feeling used and foolish. That turns out to be the highlight of the evening. Pos and Scripps disappear almost immediately, likely so they can smooch in a dark corner, even Terry the economics major peels off when they get to the bar, and Dakin doesn’t get so much as a glimmer of interest from anyone.

Tumbling out onto the street in the small hours, he remembers the number on his hand. It’s blurred out of recognition in the sulphurous glow of the street lamps, and he ends up wishing he’d gone home with the girl from the party after all.

“You can’t pick up guys by simply smacking them on the arse at random” Posner lectures him as they pile into the flat. Dakin mimics him behind his back. “We’re going to bed. Turn out the lights, would you?”

“Fucker”

After he goes to bed, Dakin lies awake picturing them together. Straining his ears for any tell-tale sound of movement he tries to imagine who does what and how; whether it’s sweet and gentle or rough and businesslike. He wonders if they do it doggy style or whether one of them climbs on top. It occurs to him, suddenly out of the darkness of his room, that perhaps it’s all completely different to how it is with a girl, and he is lacking all frame of reference. It’s a frustrating thought.

Without hesitating, he gives in to the need to touch his cock, and insinuates himself into the mental tableau he’s constructed. However inaccurate it may be, he knows the basic mechanics of sex. As he strokes, he wonders which position he’d prefer, and, wetting a finger, insinuates it into his arse. It burns a bit as he pushes it as deep as it will go. He comes with a barely contained shout, before shuffling on weak legs to the bathroom to wash his hands, fighting back shame and disgust. He knows Irwin was gay, but somehow he can’t picture him doing all this - the fantasy of him writhing around in ecstasy as Dakin licks and strokes and does… _things_ to him is easy. Not so much the accidentally getting shit on his finger. 

**~*~**

“Can we have a threesome?” 

Scripps goes pale and Posner chokes on his tea. 

“What?”

“Can we have sex - the three of us? You guys can show me how it works! I know I joked about it but no one else seems to want to - it’s not like either of you are bad looking”

“I can’t believe I have to say this, but no, Dakin, we cannot have a threesome because you’re desperate and couldn’t pull last night”

He lets out a wail. “I’m in a rut of heterosexuality”

“That’s your problem, mate”

It takes a few days for Posner to stop being off with him, and Scripps takes him aside to politely request that he stops being such a twat - his words. For the sake of domestic harmony Dakin resolves to be less incestuous. 

  
  
He’s never had any shortage of people falling for him, and it seems deeply unfair that the supply should dry up now. He spends a frustrating week considering his options before a target finally presents itself. One of the guys in his study group has a crush on him – he’s sure of it. He hadn’t really noticed him before, and it’s no mystery why - he sits on the other side of the dark lecture hall with a group of similarly boring try-hards. Dakin wouldn’t normally go for him at all, but desperate times call for pushing his comfort zone, and so, during the next session he forgoes his usual seat to sit next to the mystery exhibitionist. 

“Hi, do you mind? Only I can’t hear so well at the back.” He flashes his most winning smile and the guy blushes and knocks his pencil case off the table. An excellent start. Mentally he awards himself a pat on the back. “I don’t think we’ve ever spoken. Stu”

“Rod-er, Rod” He vacillates between taking his outstretched hand and picking up his pens, which are scattered across the floor. 

Biting back an innuendo, Dakin wiggles an eyebrow as they shake hands, inspiring another blush, before he bends down to help retrieve the fallen pens. He’s feeling pretty pleased with himself as he sits back down, then the rest of the gang arrive, positioning themselves along the row on the other side of Rod - who, it turns out, usually goes by Rodney. From then on there is much whispering and nudging and passing of notes that Dakin isn’t naive enough to believe don’t concern him, and by the end of the hour Rod has got past the stammering and fumbling and is pretty much ignoring him. Dakin had been intending to ask him out for a drink afterwards but he hightails it out with the gang of whisperers before he gets the chance, and although Dakin had managed to slip his phone number into the pencil case along with the pens, he doesn’t call.

**~*~**

“He liked me enough to lie about his embarrassing name, what could they have said to put him off me so fast?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because! I’m repulsive to men”

It’s been a fortnight since the humiliating experience with Rod and he hasn’t had so much as a nibble since.

“First of all: shove up this isn’t a fainting couch. Do you even fancy him?” Posner, armed with a plate of toast, displaces him to the end of the settee.

“No, but that’s not the point”

“Most people would consider it the point.” Scripps pipes up from the kitchen.

“If you don’t fancy him, then there’s a chance your flirting came off … forced?”

“Eerie” 

“Aggressive”

“Confusing”

“Disturbing”

“Fuck the pair of you” He hauls himself up with the intention of shutting himself away in his room.

“It’s like having a teenager” he hears Scripps sigh as he settles into the vacated seat beside Posner.

“Our boy is growing up”

He slams the door on the sound of their canoodling. 

**~*~**

When he gets home the next day he finds a magazine laid out on his bed, open to display the sex pages. He flips to the front where two men are posed suggestively along with the usual cover lines promising hot sex tips and the secrets of how to wear the new fashions. It’s dated to over two years ago, but it’s the battered and well read look of it that causes him to wrinkle his nose. It begs the question whether it came from Scripps or Posner’s collection, and which he’d feel worst about. The slightly grubby feeling doesn’t stop him reading it though, and by tea time he’s learned loads on a variety of subjects and feels well versed on how not to make anal hurt, how to be an breathtaking bottom or considerate top; he’s discovered that foreplay is something he’s going to have to consider - he’s glad he learned that before embarrassing himself; and feels confident on how to minimise mess, which is a huge relief and something he’s been worried about ever since he started experimenting alone. On the other hand, he’s also learned enough about STIs to put a lesser man off ever having sex again. 

When he ventures into the kitchen Posner asks him how it’s going with a voice so laden with meaning that it has to have been him who left it out – although judging from Scripps’ red faced chortling he knew about it too. Dakin is glad – not so much because the thought of sharing a wank mag with Scripps is uncomfortable – it isn’t really – but because he hates the idea of Scripps keeping something like this from him for two whole years. 

  
**~*~**

The next time he feels the need to bring it up he’s having coffee on the sunshine flooded pavement with Perdi, one of his new set of absurdly posh friends. They’re celebrating her finishing her dissertation with cheap cappuccinos in the glaring spring sunshine, and after dark there will be cheap cocktails in neon-lit nightclubs. They’ve been friends since their first year when they clicked over a greasy breakfast, sought out the morning after a hazily remembered - and universally disappointing - one night stand. What the sex lacked their conversation more than made up for, and since then she’s been the one person other than Scripps that Dakin can pour all of his vulnerabilities out to. 

“So you’re saying you’re gay? Explains your technique” She quirks an eyebrow under her asymmetrical fringe.

“Har fucking har. No, I’m - bisexual if you like. I don’t have a gender preference” He doesn’t add that he’s only just calmed down enough to start having sex with women again after several weeks of introspection and self doubt.

She nods her head, half in agreement, half to the beat of the terrible background music and stirs her coffee. “Like David Bowie?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok, so what’s the problem?”

“There isn’t a problem”

“Sounds like there’s a problem”

“I repel men” He scowls.

“Scripps knows men - gay men. You must have told him about this. Why don’t you ask him to set you up with Mr Right?”

“Because knowing him, he’d find him - I don’t want Mr Right, I want Mr One Night Stand.”

She snorts an open-mouthed goofy laugh, which garners stares from passers by. In spite of all the private schooling and tuition her parents put her through she is chronically graceless and unladylike, and Dakin adores her for it. “So do that then.”

“That’s what I’m telling you, I can’t - I am repulsive to men!” 

“I’m sure it can’t be that difficult if you’ve really set your mind to it” She looks him up and down, sceptically. “Why the sudden obsession?”

“It’s not sudden exactly. I’ve always felt like this, I’ve always known – not that I’ve always _known_ I’ve known, but – Whatever. The point is, before I find anyone serious I want to be completely, authentically myself. Does that make sense?”

“Yep” She sticks the wooden stirrer into her mouth and withdraws it slowly, sucking the foam off, in a move that makes him shudder in horror. “Sounds like pretentious wank, but makes total sense to me”

“That’s it, no questions?” 

She shrugs. “I wonder why you can’t just trust that the right guy will come when he comes –“ They both chortle at the double entendre. “Or else go to a bar and hit up some random bloke. But I’m sure you have your reasons”

“I’m twenty two I’m probably going to get married soon” 

Her face freezes in shock. “But you’re not even seeing anyone – are you?”

He lights a ciggie to give himself thinking time. He must be growing up because he remembers the days when nothing thrilled him more than realising one of his friends had fallen for the Dakin charm. Blowing out a stream of smoke he allows himself a moment of nostalgia for those days. “Stands to reason. Everyone else is getting matched up in this town. I don’t want to be the sad married guy who says he’s adventurous just to look interesting at parties”

“Darling,” She reaches across the table, almost upsetting the milk jug in the process, to lay a hand on his. “I am convinced that will never be you. Why have you eschewed the club approach? Not like you”

He shrugs, embarrassed. “It’s my first time, I don’t want it to be completely meaningless”

“You have someone in mind”

“No” He answers too quickly. She stares until he looks away, but doesn’t press the issue. “Maybe I’ll forget it and learn to drive instead” He pretends to be absorbed in swirling his coffee around in the cup, and they move on to other topics. 

  
  
  


**~*~**

He’s almost resigned himself to a life half lived when it happens. He’s looking for a book in Blackwells' and the useless bloke behind the counter is being almost purposefully unhelpful when a deep voice from behind him interrupts. “Excuse me, do you mind if I just pay for this?”

Dakin turns to see a tall blond guy with oversized spectacles and nice arms. He flashes a winning smile. “I’m terribly sorry but I’m in an awful hurry – I’ve just finished with that book, though. I can lend it to you if you like?”

With a nod, Dakin steps aside to let him push in.

“You’re a lifesaver.” He pulls the book from his satchel. “No rush, just whenever you finish with it.”

“Are you sure? You don’t know me” Dakin protests out of good manners, even though he really needs it and has no intention of turning down the offer. 

“No, but like I said I’m in a hurry” Balancing it on his knee, the bloke hurriedly scribbles something in the flyleaf. “And this way I have an excuse to see you again”. He hands it over with a wink.

The saviour rushes from the shop, leaving a flustered Dakin watching after him - butterflies in his stomach reminding him that he hasn’t felt swept off his feet like this since he came to Oxford.

He doesn’t intend to ring that night, for fear of looking over keen, but, as Posner points out oh-so-sweetly, he could hardly be any keener and he can’t afford for this bloke to move on. On the first try the phone is engaged and he spends an interminable hour trying to judge how long the call might go on for, and how soon would look too desperate to try again. The second time it rings but he has to put the phone down because Pos and Scripps won’t fuck off and hang around giggling and giving him unwanted encouragement. He sneaks out to the hall after supper for a third attempt. This time he gets through they agree to meet for a drink 

“Not the pub though,” The bloke - Marcus, says. “Pubs are so impersonal. Why don’t you come to mine?”

“Does anyone ever fall for that line?”

“I was hoping you might”

It’s not as functional as Dakin had been expecting. Marcus, it turns out, is a post grad with a taste for vodka and jazz and has a date planned for the evening. He takes Dakin to a club where some friends of his are playing a set and then for chips, before returning to his flat, where he puts on something soft and sultry - Posner would know what it is, but he doesn’t have a clue. It’s nice though. He says as much.

“Yeah” Marcus doesn’t offer any further explanation, but pours them both a drink and motions to the bed.

It feels reminiscent of an exam – he’s certainly studied for it, and he’s determined to be judged and not found wanting. This might explain why he ends up sitting perched on the very edge of the bed, tightly gripping his whisky and coke.

“Nervous?”

He gives a tight-lipped smile rather than trying to explain – he doesn’t know how without coming across as pathetic. Marcus puts a hand on his thigh, and strokes gently with his thumb. It’s nice. Dakin leans in and accidentally pokes him in the eye with his nose. 

“Shit sorry, you ok? I think I’ve had a bit much”

“I think,” Blinking his eye open, he takes the glass from Dakin’s hand and takes a sip “You’re probably putting too much pressure on yourself” 

Relief pooling in his belly, Dakin gives a sheepish laugh.

“Why don’t we just fool around a bit and see where it takes us” 

It doesn’t take the adventurous turn he was hoping for, which is to say that the condom he’d brought along stays tucked in his back pocket, but the morning finds him walking home sated and flooded with a sense of relief and validation – that it wasn’t all in his head, or a passing phase or just plain madness. 

When he gets in he goes straight to his postcard stash and writes to Irwin, telling him all about it. Finished, he re-reads it, tears it up and takes out a fresh one - Christchurch college in the snow, perfectly cliched. He writes the house phone number on the back, stamps and addresses it. Then he puts it in his pocket for when he next passes a post box.


End file.
